Pythoness
by Chaogirl
Summary: A one shot dark story about Severus Snape encountering an abused oracle while in the service of Voldemorte. Takes place prior to the books. Contains many adult themes, included abuse, off screen torture, off screen rape, consensual sex.


Author's note. This is just something I thought of while reasearching the Oracle at Delphi. Some accounts suggest the oracle was called Pythia, and one origin story says that the cave of the Oracle came to exist when Zeus killed the dragon Python, and it's corpse fell into a chasm, the oracle sat over the chasm to receive her visions. Obviously I used none of that except the names, but I wanted you to know where my inspiration came from.

January 1980.

The Dark Lord lounged on a sedan, dominating the attention of every person in the chamber. Severus had not been the only Death eater summoned to the room. While the presence of his lord certainly inspired a great deal of awe within him, Severus had an uneasy feeling about this meeting.

"My friends" Voldemort began, "a great boon has been bestowed upon us" He stood and with a flourish of his hand, he drew their attention to a shape lying on the floor. A humanoid, there was blood, more then there ought to have been.

Alarm flooded Severus for a moment, but he quickly quelled it, his lord was a master of Legilimency, it did not serve well to show distress at his decisions. A shame though, he thought, for he was certain that the person was dead. A female, he could discern, with white hair.

A sudden shift of her shoulders though, a very minor movement, and he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. She lived. He was relieved; the reckless killings of his master and cohorts did not sit well with him.

"As you may see, my minions, I have come to acquire a very useful tool. A Pythia" Voldemort told them, the weight of that sunk in, the Pythia were a famous clan of prophetesses, originating in Delphni, they had never been a large clan, and their numbers had dwindled in modern history, most people had only ever heard myths about them. "She and I have had several very revealing conversations tonight, I feel we could all learn a great deal from her, but alas, she is no longer in the mood to entertain us with her wit" A snicker ran through the other Death Eaters assembled there. Severus did not laugh, he never laughed, and certainly when one of the most famous prophetesses of their world lay in a tortured heap.

"I have assembled you so that we may immediately set forth on many plans that have resulted from my conversation with the Pythia, but first Snape?"

Snape bowed to his lord "how may I be of service my lord?"

"Snape, I feel that our Pythia may be feeling a bit, under the weather, I would request that you take her to the rooms I have had the house elves prepare and assist her in her recovery"

"Yes my lord"

He knelt by the form of the woman, barely more then a girl. Her face had obviously impacted an unforgiving surface, her nose appeared broken, her eyes swollen, the blood had begun to coagulate and was thick and dark. She gasped shallowly through split lips, she was lucky to be unconscious he concluded. The rest of her was no better, what must have been a fine green robe was torn and bloodied, it had been ripped mostly away from her upper body, and split along the thigh, he pulled the robe over her to protect her modesty, and chanted quick spell to lighten her weight, and easily scooped her into his arms.

With a bow to his master he exited the room, following the house elf that had been waiting outside; he took her to her chambers.

The room was amply accommodating; he laid her on the thick bedspread, and quickly began assessing her with a cool headed practicality. Her injuries to the face were obvious, but there were no fluids leaking from either ear to indicate brain damage, he quickly chants the Episkey spell, to straighten her nose. With snap the bone is wrenched into place, and a moan escapes her lips. He should have spelled her unconscious first, silly of him, but he's no healer, only the closest thing to a healer the dark lord had on hand tonight.

Her eyes flutter open, but without focus, they seem to roll around in her head, not taking anything in. They are strange eyes, so pale of blue, the color of frost on a window on a sunny winter day, giving her the appearance of cloudy blindness. Of course maybe she is blind, they way they do not focus… but there, her eyes snap into focus on Snape, and he sees them fill with emotion, Fear. She is terrified.

Uncertain, he ignores her silent terror, and resumes his appraisal of her condition. Her hands flutter to her robes, trying to pull them over herself more modestly, but they don't seem to work right, he realizes her right hand has several minor fractures. He summons the house elf.

"in my room, I will need the following potions, in the potion cupboard, third shelf, second from the left, a green bottle with a cork lid and a silver seal, second shelf, clear bottle, amber liquid, silver lid, and eighth shelf, near the middle, slim glass vial, with a rubber stopper, and be quick"

Turning his attention back to his patient he tells her "I'm here to heal you, not to hurt you, cooperation will make this easier for both of us" He's not certain she comprehends, but she never gives him trouble. Moving from her head to her torso he diagnoses a fractured rib, she turns her head and stares at the wall as he pushes her torn robe aside to assess the damage, revealing a perfectly burned imprint of the dark lords hand print on her left lower ribs. "Brakium Amendo" he spells, and with a nasty wet snap, the bones shift themselves back into place. It had to hurt her, but she did not cry out, she gasped air into lungs once again able to fully expand. Aside from that there were other cuts and contusions on her torso. And burns, whatever the dark lord had done to make her talk, had not been quite unpleasant.

He rolled her onto her side, gently, to exam her back, what he found surprised him. Starting at the base of her skull, under her hair, scales erupted from her skin. A serpentine pattern of assorted grays, black, and white trailed in a narrow stripe down her spine. There seemed to be no significant damage to her back, she had been facing the dark lord as he struck her. She had begun to curl her legs up and go into a fetal position when he firmly, but gently pushed her shoulders back down, so she once a gain lay flat on the bed.

Her right hand had been damaged too, only her index and middle finger were working.  
"I will have to use that spell again on your hand" he warned her, "I can do it now, or I can wait until the elf brings the pain potion" Her strange milky gaze meets his, and gives a single nod. He did not hesitate, and with another gruesome snap her hand was pulled back into its proper place.

Her left arm and hand were mostly unscathed, some bloody scrapes along the shoulder and upper arm, where perhaps she had slid across the floor. Small burns pocked her skin along the forearm.

He shifted his evaluation to her lower body. He… she. there, was blood on her thighs. He knew what it meant; he knew in an instant what foul depravities his lord had put her through.

When the elf arrived, he put his hand behind her back, skin sliding over strange scales, and helped her sit up. He selected the clear vial with the rubber stopper, pulling the rubber stopper out with his teeth; he held it to her lips. "For the pain" he told her, as he tipped its contents into her mouth. She swallowed the clear liquid, and immediately, her eyes began to flutter, as she passed into a painless, dreamless sleep.

"Clean water" he barked at the elf nearby, "and towels" the elf had anticipated this, hauling over a tray with such supplies as he might need.

He cleaned the blood from her body as best he could, removed the robe with clinical dispassion. Reaching for the green bottle he had the elf retrieve from his chamber, he began dabbing the healing potion over the contusions, cuts and scrapes. With the solution in the clear bottle, he dabbed it over the swelling on her face. The burns he could do nothing for, they were the mark of the dark lord, and his own magic was unable to aid her in that.

"is there a robe for her?" he asked the elf, and the elf ran to a nearby wardrobe, and pulled out a pale blue sleeping robe.

With the elf's assistance he dressed her, and moved her under the covers. The elf moved with efficiency to strip the bed of its blood stained cover, and pulled a fresh bedspread over her.

Looking at his recovering patient he was able to really assess her for the first time. She wasn't really pretty. Her face was too thin, and long, and her skin was too pale. Her hair, and her eyebrows, even her eyelashes, were all eerily white, giving her a ghost like quality. The rest of her was too thin, he remembered her protruding ribs, and hip bones, and over all, she was far too strange to be attractive. He felt sorry for her though. She had a talent for retrieving information the dark lord wanted. The fact that the lord had summoned Snape to help her proved that he at least had future plans for her. Based off her condition today, that did not bode well for her future.

The house elf laid a tray with a comb and brush on the nightstand. Unsure now what he was to do, now that he had helped in her recovery, he sat down on the bed next to her, and proceeded to bush her hair, until it lay in soft waves around her head.

Then with a final tuck of her covers, he stood up and went to his rooms.

…………………………………………………………………………………

The following weeks saw his patient in his care more often then he cared to think about. The Dark Lord never invited the other Death Eaters in on his interrogations, greedily hording all future knowledge she may have bestowed upon him.

Only Severus ever got to see her, and only then when he was putting her back together. She never spoke to him, never cried out when he set her bones, never resisted when he examined her. When she was conscious she lay there under his ministrations with silent animosity seething from her. He spoke to her only as needed to treat her. He sometimes saw the spark of defiance in her pale eyes, the defiance that forced the dark lord to beat every last one of her prophecies out. But Voldemort was obviously getting what he wanted out her. Every session was followed by a flurry of assignments to his death eaters, assassinations now had the maximum impact, alliances were forged in places one would have never previously thought, he always knew exactly where to strike. He was extracting this information from her, in grueling sessions.

"why do you resist?" he asks her while he wipes dried blood from the wounds he just healed. "Just give him what he wants and he won't have to hurt you"

She maintains her stony silence, but her eyes focus sharply on him.

He doesn't ask her again. Not until she shows up with occipital fractures and a broken cheek bone. "why?" he asks her.

His faith in his lord is wavering, he can't bear to see this girl in Voldemort's grasp, yet he is helpless to save her, and if the lord found out of his feelings on the matter… Well if the lord were to probe his mind, a swift death would be the best Snape could hope for.

"You really shouldn't think such things" she says to him, the first time she has spoken in his presence. "if he kills you, who will put me back together again?" Her voice is husky, but small, barely more then a whisper, like her, it seemed to be merely a ghost. She speaks with an American accent.

"If you didn't resist, I wouldn't have to" He replied.

"I resist because that's all I have left" She averts her gaze. "I have my dignity, and I have you, and everything else is gone"

"Me?" Snape replies, incredulous.

"pathetic, I have my dignity, and I have his sniveling worm who stitches me back together, and when he looks into your mind, and sees the great swell of pity you feel for me, and the seditious thoughts you think about him while healing me; I will have nothing but my dignity, and I will look back longingly on the days when someone cared enough to try to put me together right."

"Is that a prophecy?" he asks her

"No, I've seen your future, I don't suppose I should reveal it, he would kill you if he knew I was revealing prophecies, but I suggest you practice occlumency, if you hope to survive here"

"And I" Snape replied, "suggest you give up some of your dignity, if you hope to survive"

She laughs at that "I know I'm going to survive here, I know where I will fall; I know I can survive anything between now and then. I don't die a good death, but I'll survive anything until then"

"How do you go on?" he asks "with bitter knowledge of your own death?

"I don't know, you could ask yourself the same question, you'll die a hero, but you won't die a good death either"

Her laughter is something like glass breaking, it's grating and unpleasant. She laughs until he leaves the room.

………………………………………

"There's a trick to occlumency" she says to him. "You pull mundane thoughts, things legilimen expects you to be thinking, over your true thoughts, like a blanket" She winces as he squeezes the edges of her wound together so he may administer a healing potion. "the real trick is to think mundane things though, if they do not suspect you of occlumency, then will never probe deep enough to find out, most people give themselves away by always pulling the same cover over their thoughts, never shifting the occlumenting thought to have topical meaning"

She was barely injured today.

"I tried what you said" she told him gravely.

"I'm sorry?" Severus replied.

"I didn't resist, not much, I put up a show, I couldn't help myself, but I in the end, I gave in easily, I told him what he wants to know"

Snape didn't reply for a long time, he continued to clean the scrape. "obviously, your token resistance was still enough to cause yourself damage"

"nothing you can't fix" she said nonchalantly, "I have every faith that you'll put me back right as rain" She pauses, then she laughs "right as rain" she repeats, "such a strange phrase"

"do you watch Rally races?" She asks, her tone implying that this is a completely normally conversation to be having right now.

Severus does not reply.

"I don't suppose wizards get into such sports" She said. "that's always the thing that seems strangest to me about Britain, in America, us who use magic are so few, we live scattered among the rest of the populace, there's not enough of us anywhere for a real community, except maybe up north, I hear there are some places up in Canada, but I grew up in St Louis, and there were maybe a dozen magic users total in all the metro"

Snape can't begin to fathom how he would reply to that, so he doesn't.

"except recently, I've been with a race car team, we all use magic, not during the races of course, that would be cheating, but to build the cars, to tune them, to get them perfectly balanced, other teams used fancy computers, but not us, we used magic, I drove a race car, it was quite exciting"

"I dated a few wizards, but mostly I've dated regular guys" She says, he doesn't know what she's getting at. "It's hard dating regular guys though, that's what Voldemorts really after, he's after the prophesies I give during sex, he'll never get them though"

Snape blushes, he's quite uncomfortable with the change in conversation.

"Don't have to be such a bleeding prude about it, that's what he's after. Sometimes I have moments where time stands still for me, and I can see infinitely in front of me and behind me in time, and sometimes those moments are shared, through intimacy, sex mostly, that's what he's after, but he doesn't realize he can't take that from me, or maybe he suspects it, but he's trying anways."

He finishes his task, and makes a hasty and awkward escape.

……………………………………..

He didn't see her for almost a week after that.

When he did see her, it was bad.

Swelling in the abdomen indicated internal bleeding. Broken ribs, a wrist was shattered. She must have held her arm over her head to defend herself.

Giving swift instructions to the elf that always helped him attend her; he set to work putting her to rights.

Groggily, she looked over at him, hovering on the edge of consciousness. "if I don't resist him" she says in a whisper "I'll never get to see you"

"shhhhhh… shhhhh" Severus hushes her, "don't speak, just rest, I'll put you to rights again" He's not certain his spells and potions are up to this job, but he has no option but to try.

She grabs his hand with her good hand, and draws his attention to her eyes; her left eye is blood shot. "The secret to…" she gasps in pain "the secret to occlumency is to think two things at one time"

"shhhh…" again he hushes her, "you'll have time to tell me that later"

"no, I won't, I have to tell you now" she pauses while she gathers herself "the secret to occlumency is to think two things at once, to think one thing that anyone listening would expect you to think, and hide everything beneath that, sometimes also, you need to create fake memories"

He wipes the blood away from her eyes and begins to administer a healing spell to her internal injuries.

"I would suggest you start right now" she wheezes "you'll want to remember this differently later when he questions you". A choked gasp "you'll want to remember treating my wounds with admiration of your lord's ability to take that which he wants from me"

……………………………..

She was right. Later he stood in his lord's chambers and listed over her injuries. And as he did so, he held her suggested thought firmly in his head. He's not sure where he got the fortitude from to perform such an audacious task, but he did. He saw Voldemort give him a contemplative look, and felt the brushes at the edge of his mind, and held firm to the imposter thought, that his lord's strength was proven through his ability to take what he needed from those lesser then him.

"does she ever talk to you, while your treating her?" The dark lord asks

"sometimes" Snape replies truthfully, "she talks about her life before, before you captured her" He picks his words, and his thoughts on the subject carefully, filling his mind with their shared conversations, but carefully occlumenting the feelings behind them, shifting the awe he was beginning to feel for the girl into awe for his lord. "she talks about the vehicles the muggles drive, the job she held for awhile racing cars, simple stuff, I believe she gets some comfort from discussing such things"

Voldemorte continues his penetrating glare for a short time, then says "very well, that is all from you for now"

……………………………

Later that night he checked on her, she seemed to be sleeping, and thankfully, recovering with the help of his potions.

He was about to leave when he heard her move. Looking over he saw her sitting up in her bed. He walked to her. "You knew he would be looking at my mind today" he said. It wasn't a question.

She shrugged.

"I don't think I'll see you again for awhile" she said. "I needed today, I had a message to deliver to you, and today I needed to see you to deliver it, but I can't take it anymore"

And realization and guilt hit him. She had tried to tell him about occlumency before, but he had brushed her aside. So today she submitted herself to Voldemorte's worst beating just so she could see him again.

"After today, I'll give him what he wants" she says as she lies down again. "It's as much as I can take anymore"

"We'll meet again before I go" she says, but she's not meeting his gaze while she says it.

As he shuts the door to her chambers he thinks he hears her say "I'm sorry", but he's not sure what for. And leaning his head against her door, he says it back, "I'm sorry"

……………………………….

She was right, she doesn't see him again. Or she does, but never alone. She submits fully to Voldemort, who keeps her by his side like a pet. If she was ghost like before, she is doubly so now. Her pale eyes are more disturbing now with their vacant gaze. It infuriates Snape to see Voldemorte as he strokes her hair, and her cheek, like a pet, but he keeps her advice in mind as he grows more and more accustomed to keeping a hiding thought over his true self.

Today at the feast the dark lord had her dressed in rich green silk, a backless gown, cut to expose her strange scales. "A toast" the lord proposes, "to my Pythia, my python of prophecy" and he tips back his goblet to consume the contents. She doesn't move.

………………………

Snape researches the Pythia, a clan of prophetesses, associated with, or descended from the Dragon Python; they began in Delphi, Greece, but have since dispersed over the globe.

He grows further and further out of favor with Voldemort. No longer needed to heal his pet, his services are no longer required. Hence he is forced further from her.

He didn't realize he had come to care for her so much. But when he had her in his care, he no longer felt the sting of Lily's rejection, and now, exiled from her side, the shame and the remorse were over whelming.

He knows he should just accept it, she had told him they'd meet again before she left, and he knew she did not lie, but still, his mind always wandered to ways he could be next to the Dark Lord and thus to her.

Thus when he overheard Sybill Trelawney give her prophecy to Dumbledore, he thought not about the consequences, and only about the possibility of getting in his lord's favor, and thus being granted an audience with her. He stood in his lord's presence, she didn't even look up at him from where she sat, empty, hollow.

By the time he realized the implications of his eavesdropping, it was too later to save her, and all he could hope for was to save the first love of his life, Lily.

………………………………………….

Three weeks later.

………………………………………….

Snape sat in Dumbledore's office, and he promised him anything. He couldn't help the Pythia, he couldn't only hope that what she had said would come true, that they would meet again. He could help Lily, and he does. "Anything" he promises.

……………………

August 1981.

…………………….

The Death Eaters had been rounded up. And among them was a pale, ghost like girl, with a peculiar patch of scales extending down her back. Snape breathed a sigh of relief to find out that the Ministry had rescued her; until he found out she was standing trial with the rest of them.

He went to Dumbledore, he explained, everything.

………………………

The day they released her she stood on the front step of the ministry of magic, looking small and lost.

Snape was waiting for her. He went to her, and she looked up at him expectantly. Her eyes sat in hollow sockets now, she was thinner then she had ever been.

She didn't resist when he guided her to the train, and took her home to Spinner's End.

He had a small guest bedroom, it wasn't much, he told her, but she could stay as long as she needed. She nodded and sat down heavily on the bed.

She asked if he had a telephone, he did not.

"oh" she said, that was all. He asked if she had family she needed to contact, but she didn't reply.

She idly wandered through is library, picking up a book, gazing at it. He left her while he went to the store, bought her the things he thought she might need, a blouse and a skirt, night clothes, a toothbrush.

Snape cooked dinner that night, for the two of them, she picked at her food, not really eating much.

That night she closed the door to the guest bedroom, and after he had stayed up some time, attempting to read, he went to his room. It was well after midnight when he heard her opening his door. He pretended to sleep as she slipped under the covers.

"I'm sorry about Lily" she says quietly, he does not reply, still attempting to feign sleep. "I didn't see it coming, or I would have warned you" She doesn't speak again.

A silent tear slides down his face as he thinks about Lily. She leans over and kisses the tear away and he opens his eyes to look at her. For the first time since the day she taught him occlumency, her eyes seem to be alive, and focused. He could see it, even in the dark of his room. She leans over and kisses him, and his arms wrap around her.

The kiss becomes deeper, more. His hands slid to her thighs, to her hips, her sleeping gown gets discarded on the floor, along with his. Her hands are on him, encouraging him, and their gazes lock as he pauses, unsure if this is right, after all the times the Dark Lord abused her, he wonders if he is taking advantage of her. She ends his inner turmoil with a shift of her hips and he is lost in her. Her hand raises his face, and forces him to meet her eyes as he finds a steady rhythm. In the dark her eyes seem to glow with a ghostly light, he knows he is lost forever in her gaze. And a moment exists, for a moment that lasts a lifetime; he can see the threads of time as she sees them. He can see everything. He can see every moment in the past, her past, and his own. He can see her laughing, and crying. He can see the pain and torment Voldemorte put her through.

And he sees the future. She was right; neither of them dies a good death.

After eternity has passed in the blink of an eye, she's lying next to him, and at least one of them is crying. "When I saw that in the past, I always thought he was your son" she says, and he knows exactly what she is referring to. 'I never saw Lily until it was too late, her future was another's to foretell"

Eventually they fall asleep.

She's gone in the morning. She took the clothes he bought her, and all the money she could find.

He never saw her again.

Later he realized he had never even actually learned her name.

…………………

Fin.


End file.
